House Build Schedule Generator

How long will it take to build your house? Enter size, stories, foundation and start date to get a phase-by-phase schedule with dates, a Gantt chart and total months. Print it for your lender or builder.

1. Your house

sq ft

2. Timing

weeks
%

The start date opens about 30 days from today; change it to yours. Permit wait defaults to 6 weeks, about the City of Houston's 30-business-day pilot goal for single-family permits. Outside Houston, ask your city or county. The weather buffer lengthens site prep, foundation, framing, dry-in and exterior only. For a production build, design is a short plan-selection step.

Your schedule

— months, start to certificate of occupancy

  • Estimated move-in (CO) date—
  • Total length—
  • Permit issued around—
  • Permit issued to done—

Gantt chart

Schedule table

PhaseStartEndWeeks

Dates are calendar dates (weekends included) and are estimates. Some phases overlap: dry-in starts as framing ends, rough-in starts mid dry-in, and exterior work runs alongside drywall and interior finishes.

How this schedule works

Each phase has a typical duration for a 2,000 sq ft, one-story, slab-on-grade custom home. The tool scales those durations to your house, then lines the phases up with realistic overlaps.

  1. Size: construction phases scale with (your size / 2,000) to the 0.4 power, so a house twice as big takes about 32% longer, not twice as long. Foundation and site prep use the footprint (size divided by stories). Design time scales more gently.
  2. Stories: each extra story adds about 15% to framing and 10% to dry-in, rough-in and design.
  3. Foundation: slab 3.5 weeks, pier and beam 5.5 weeks at the reference size.
  4. Build type: a production builder (standard plans, repeat crews) runs construction phases at 75% of custom durations, with 3 weeks for plan selection instead of about 12 weeks of design.
  5. Permit wait: your number, in weeks, as a hard gate before site work starts.
  6. Weather buffer: multiplies outdoor phases only.

The durations are our own planning assumptions, tuned so the permit-to-done time lands near the Census averages below. Real builders' schedules vary with trade availability, inspections, material lead times (windows and special-order items are common delays), financing draws and change orders.

Sources for typical build times

Note that the Census clock starts at permit authorization, so it does not include design or permit review. This tool reports both the full length and the permit-issued-to-done length for comparison.

Houston permit timing

Utility connections, septic and well approvals, floodplain review, HOA architectural review and deed restrictions can add weeks that this tool does not model. Add them to the permit wait box if they apply.

Using the printout

Estimates only — not engineering, legal or code advice. Check requirements with your local building department and a licensed professional before you build.

Common questions

How long does it take to build a house?

The U.S. Census Bureau's Survey of Construction, as summarized by NAHB's Eye on Housing for 2024, shows an average of 9.1 months from authorization (permit) to completion for single-family homes: 1.4 months to start and 7.6 months to build. Homes built for sale averaged 7.6 months, contractor-built homes about 12 months and owner-built homes about 15.1 months. Add design and permit review time before that.

What does this tool show for a typical custom home?

With the defaults (2,000 sq ft, one story, slab, custom build, 6 weeks of permit review and a 10% weather buffer on outdoor phases) the schedule runs about 63.7 weeks, or 14.7 months, from the first design day to the certificate of occupancy. About 10.5 months of that is from permit issued to done, in line with the roughly 12 months Census reports for contractor-built homes. Switching to a production build drops the total to about 9.3 months.

How long does a Houston building permit take?

It varies with the project and the review backlog. The City of Houston Permitting Center started a pilot in July 2025 aiming for about 30 business days (roughly 6 weeks) on eligible single-family permits, and press and permit-service summaries describe typical new single-family reviews of roughly 4 to 6 weeks. The tool defaults to 6 weeks; change it to match what your builder or the Houston Permitting Center tells you. Homes outside Houston's city limits are permitted by other cities or counties, or in some places not at all, so check locally.

How much does a weather buffer add?

The buffer lengthens only the outdoor phases (site prep, foundation, framing, dry-in and exterior) by the percentage you choose. At 10% it adds about 0.4 months to the default schedule (14.3 months with no buffer versus 14.7 months with 10%). Houston's heavy rains and hurricane season make a 10 to 20% buffer reasonable for outdoor work.

Does a pier and beam foundation take longer than a slab?

Usually somewhat. The tool gives a pier and beam foundation 5.5 weeks against 3.5 weeks for a slab at the reference size, which lifts the default schedule from about 14.7 to about 15.2 months. Slab foundations also need curing time and an inspection before framing starts. Engineers and local soil conditions drive the real answer.

Why is the permit phase so important to my schedule?

Nothing physical can begin on a new house until the permit is issued, so every extra week of review pushes the whole schedule back one for one. Raising permit review from 6 to 12 weeks moves the default finish from 14.7 to about 16.0 months. Complete plans, a survey and engineering letters submitted up front are the best way to avoid resubmittals.

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